2
Do these intellectual pygmies really imagine that Pluto has changed size at their diktat? I doubt if Pluto cares what they think. Worthy though the cause is I cannot cast my pebble. Anything above the sphere of Saturn is of course not a planet. Had we stuck with the Ptolemaic hypothesis we would not have this debate but what is done is done so go ahead and vote for Pluto
Matthew
Matthew Goulding

4
Personally I see nothing sinister in the IAU's move to declassify Pluto as a planet on a par with Mercury, Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

In fact, in the light of the overwhelming evidence accumulated by telescopes since the early 1990s or thereabouts that Pluto was one of numerous small celestial bodies in the Kuiper Belt and not significantly larger than the next largest, it made sound scientific sense to reclassify it in my opinion. The alternative would be to upgrade every single Kuiper Belt Object above an arbitrarily determined size to planetary status.

At the same time as declassifying Pluto, so far as I can recall, the IAU also raised the classification of Ceres from asteroid to Dwarf Planet, the same status newly accorded to Pluto. Ceres is far and away the largest of the bodies that have conventionally been known as the asteroids. Within the field of asteroids, it is the leader in terms of mass and volume by a much greater margin than Pluto is of the Kuiper Belt Objects. And yet Ceres has been widely accepted as not being a full planet since soon after its discovery because it was part of a field of many asteroids orbiting in the same area.

The key difference with Pluto is that the other bodies in its orbit area were not known until recently. If they had been discovered simultaneously with or soon after it, I have little doubt that historically it would never have gained widespread acceptance as being a planet in the first place.

At first, in the early 19th century when they were discovered, the largest asteroids were referred to frequently as minor planets in literature. But as evidence of their sheer number built up, this classification lost favour, with "asteroids" being preferred. I see what has happened to Pluto as following the same kind of process, albeit with a lengthier delay as a result of the longer time it took to discover the other, similar celestial bodies in its approximate zone of orbit.

What astrologers choose to call planets is another matter altogether in my opinion. Astrologers frequently loosely call the Sun and Moon planets. On that basis, I see no obstacle to their continuing to refer to Pluto as a planet too.

But why astrologers should feel the need to impose their tradition of using Pluto as a planet on the official astronomical classification system of astronomers I really don't know. Could it possibly be an emotionally guided response? I certainly don't see the need myself.

5
I thought the vote was fun but kind of missing the point.

1. According to the 2006 IAU classification scheme, (a) a planet has cleared the area around its orbit (due to gravitational pull,) whereas (b) a dwarf planet has not done so. http://lasp.colorado.edu/education/oute ... lanets.php

2. Both planets and dwarf planets orbit stars (vs. other bodies) and have enough mass and gravitational pull to be spherical.

So far as astrologers go, we disregard most of the advances in astronomy since the Copernican Revolution. This is because astrology is not astronomy. We don't play by their rules, although occasionally we overlap in agreement.

3. Orthodox traditional astrologers never accepted Pluto anyway, so the IAU's dwarf planet designation is irrelevant.

4. Modern astrologers still find Pluto astrologically relevant, so the IAU's dwarf planet designation is irrelevant.

6
I think pluto as ruler of scorpio and with his immense powers belongs into the club of the other planets but I can also understand that as god of the underworld he doesn't want to be in the limelight and decided that it is better to play his games behind the curtain. :)